Nuclear tension rises on divided Korean peninsula

Bantarto Bandoro, Editor, 'The Indonesian Quarterly', Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, bandoro@csis.or.id

A frightening scenario on the divided Korean peninsula cast a shadow over the world, as North Korea continued to resist pressures from the United States and its Asian allies that it put a complete halt to its nuclear program. North Korea has announced that it is pulling out of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty, possibly paving the way for the secretive state to begin mass-producing nuclear weapons.

The announcement means that under international law, there is nothing to prevent North Korea from re-activating a controversial nuclear plant at Yongbyon and producing materials for nuclear weapons. Whether the North Korean leaders will persist in their policy actually depends on how the world, especially the United States, reacts.

Why is North Korea raising the stakes now, when the world is campaigning to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world's arsenals? It is difficult to tell, because Pyongyang and its mercurial leader Kim Jong-il act in erratic and contradictory ways. It seems possible that North Korea is using its nuclear issue as a hard-line ploy to negotiate a non-aggression pact and improved economic aid with the United States.

The paranoid North Korea may have also decided that the United States intends to attack it anyway and has thus decided to ready its defense while the United States is preoccupied with Iraq. The danger of a nuclear war on the divided peninsula is perhaps also due to the "criminal" policy of the United States towards North Korea, a policy that has fueled the nationalist sentiment of the North Koreans.

Thus, the strategy game on the Korean peninsula is not only being played out between the United States and North Korea, but also between the world and North Korea, assuming that the issue is raised to the Security Council. But it is the same old game that had occupied the minds of the world community previously, who worried that the continuation of sanctions on North Korea by the United States would lead them to initiate a full-scale war.

The United States' Asian allies, such as Japan and South Korea, are also part of the game. These two countries face the possibility of heightened security risks if North Korea develops its nuclear arsenal unchecked. Both Japan and South Korea had put forward proposals that the United States be more prudent in its measures against Pyongyang.

One of these was a proposal that the North give up its nuclear weapons ambitions in exchange for the United States' promising to resume its shipments of fuel oil, to support the country until its energy problems were solved. This might also include a pledge from the United States not to attack North Korea. Although the conditions of this proposal fall short of the non-aggression pact North Korea demands, it might meet the need of North Koreans in terms of providing reassurances for their future.

The United States, for one, is unlikely to compromise on this, given its current stand towards the regime in Pyongyang. It is assumed that the U.S. position is that the ball is in the North Koreans' court. Thus, the nuclear standoff between North Korea and the U.S. will continue indefinitely.

Although North Korea's nuclear program may really be a diplomatic gambit designed to extract economic and political concessions, no one can really ascertain the North's true intentions; and if it decided to build a nuclear stockpile as the U.S. alleges, then a more a dangerous confrontation on the Korean peninsula would be unavoidable.

If this is the case, there are very good reasons for the international community to be worried. Arms proliferation does matter, especially when such weapons of mass destruction fall into the hands of secretive and unpredictable regimes which may well be heading to a catastrophic failure. Experts believe that the North Korean system is in terminal decline, and its people suffer great poverty and recurring famines. How the regime concludes matters and manages this potential crisis is made harder if it has nuclear weapons. There is also the danger that an unstable regime could provide such weaponry to third parties. Facts indicate that North Korea already has a bad track-record in the proliferation of missile technology.

The ongoing nuclear crisis would certainly have negative impacts on the stability and security of the Asian region as a whole. Indonesia regretted the heated situation in East Asia following North Korea's decision to pull out of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, and made calls on the country and its bickering U.S. counterpart to end the standoff amicably. Indonesia's position is that the region be freed from nuclear confrontation. This is the kind of response that Indonesia and perhaps other members of ASEAN could also show, to express their apprehension of the possible effects of the dangerous ongoing trend on the peninsula.

Unlike Southeast Asia, East Asia lacks a regional organization that could be relied upon to solve regional conflicts. Bilateral mechanisms will be the main option in bringing regional conflicts to an end. It is assumed that the U.S.-North Korea nuclear crisis will be solved through such a mechanism, but international pressure on the involved countries is still necessary if the crisis is to be solved peacefully.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) may have a chance to offer its thoughts on how the crisis could be resolved peacefully, given the fact that North Korea and the United States are both members of the forum. Perhaps it is through such a framework that ASEAN could take its best diplomatic shot to help find a solution. Though an ARF emergency meeting to discuss the crisis might not be a rational option at this moment, the current nuclear crisis should teach the forum that in future, the forum should include high-risk political issues, such as the current crisis, into its regional agenda.

There are always opportunities for Asia-Pacific regional organizations such as the ARF to play a key role in helping to solve whatever crises might arise in the future. Given ARF's current performance record, however, many doubt that countries, particularly the "major" ones, will use the forum to discuss issues.

No one really knows when the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula will come to an end, considering the fact that both the U.S. and North Korea have not moved from their current positions.

The longer the crisis continues, the greater the threat to regional security, especially if other countries decide that they also need nuclear weapons to counter the North Korean threat.